


Friends in Odd Places

by fancyadancebrigadier



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Panic Attacks, it's sad michael hours ya'll, spoilers for invasion of the dinosaurs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-01
Updated: 2021-01-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:20:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28474563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fancyadancebrigadier/pseuds/fancyadancebrigadier
Summary: Mike thought he'd done an unforgiveable thing, but Sarah-Jane Smith might just prove him wrong.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7
Collections: UNIT HQ Discord Fic and Art Challenge





	1. Man in Uniform

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the UNIT HQ Discord fic challenge.
> 
> First chapter written for prompt 1: favourite UNIT character

Mike Yates had been in uniform for his entire life.

Whether it was the short pants of his boarding school days or the sharply tailored dress suit of his time at UNIT, the clothes he’d worn had never truly been his own. He didn’t mind it, not really – it was easier to wear the same thing over and over again than have to worry about coming up with something new every day. Of course, he did have a few items of civilian clothing that he’d bring out occasionally, but they were nothing special – sensible trousers, comfortable sweaters, lightly patterned button-up shirts, the odd blazer or two. However, he much preferred putting on his uniform every morning as it gave him a sense of security and comfort that very few other things in his life could offer.

But then he’d gone and got himself dismissed from UNIT, and not even his uniform could bring him solace.

Captain no longer, Mike felt more lost than he ever had in his life. He hated himself more than words could describe – he hated his weakness, his cowardice, the hurt in the eyes of the Brigadier when he’d pointed that bloody gun at him. And John… He’d hurt John even after all the times he promised he wouldn’t. He’d never be able to forgive himself for that.

For a while, the only reason he left the house was to buy cigarettes, throwing on the same sweater and trousers every time. By the time a month had passed, they’d stopped fitting him – a strict diet of cigarettes, cocoa, and the occasional foray into his slowly emptying kitchen cupboards was not a diet conducive to keeping on weight. He had no choice but to add more clothes to his wardrobe because he couldn’t keep going around looking like a tramp.

Of course, when he finally mustered up the enthusiasm to drag himself to the department store, he had no idea where to start. He’d spent so long in uniform that he had no idea what was fashionable anymore, and his body had changed so much that he didn’t know what would look good on him. Part of his reticence came from the fact that he was frightened to look at himself in the changing room mirror – he knew he’d lost more weight than was healthy, and he didn’t want to see himself looking like a shell of who he used to be.

Just as he started contemplating giving up and going home, a somewhat familiar voice drifted into his ears.

“Mike Yates?”

He turned around to see Sarah-Jane Smith standing at the end of the aisle, a few non-descript items of clothing hanging over her arm. Freezing in place, Mike’s heart started to hammer in his chest – this was the first time he’d seen anyone from UNIT since he betrayed them, and he hadn’t prepared himself for this encounter at all. He hadn’t known Sarah for very long, but she’d seemed a nice young woman and he’d liked her in the brief time they’d spent together. But he knew what she probably thought about him – that he was a coward, a weakling, a traitor.

She started to approach him. “I don’t know if you remember me – I’m Sarah-Jane Smith, the Doctor’s friend.”

Mike swallowed, his mouth growing dry. “Yes. I remember you.”

She came to a halt beside him, her dark brown gaze sweeping up and down his ragged frame. “It’s good to see you. How have you been?”

She had to be lying. Why on earth would she think it was good to see him? Maybe she was just lulling him into a false sense of security before she gave him the berating he deserved. He could do with a good telling off – he’d been dissatisfied with what the Brigadier did to him, letting him quietly retire without so much as a whimper. He wished the Brigadier had punished him more – court-martialled him, shamed him in front of his co-workers, anything to make the consequences of his actions more brutal. Perhaps Sarah would give him the punishment he wanted.

When Mike didn’t respond, Sarah frowned. “You’re not alright, are you?” Mike kept quiet, hating how sympathetic she sounded, how caring. He just wanted her to hate him as he hated himself. Instead, to his surprise, she started browsing through the rack of shirts Mike had been aimlessly staring at before she arrived. She pulled out an olive-green button-up, decorated with a faded floral pattern, and held it up to his chest. “Yes… I think this is your colour. And I’m sure I saw a vest that would look just great with it.”

Mike simply stood there as Sarah turned to leave, the shirt still in her hand. He didn’t understand – why was she picking out clothes for him? Why was she helping him? He started to feel a headache coming on.

When she realised he wasn’t following, Sarah turned around, an expectant look on her face. “Well? Are you coming?”

“I…” He faltered, his mouth too dry to get the words out. He swallowed and tried again. “I don’t understand.” He spoke so quietly he was surprised Sarah could even hear him.

“You looked a bit lost, there,” she explained. “It seemed the decent thing to help.”

“But I…” His gaze dropped to his shoes, and he started to fiddle with his hands. “I don’t… I…”

Sarah approached him again and gently laid her hand on his arm, giving it a little squeeze. John used to do the same thing to comfort him, and the thought of it brought tears to his eyes. He didn’t realise he’d let them fall until Sarah leaned up to wipe them away.

“You poor thing… You’ve had a rough time of it, haven’t you?” She spoke softly, and Mike just couldn’t understand why she was being so nice to him.

“I brought it on myself,” he replied, his voice barely above a whisper. He hadn’t spoken to anyone since he’d left UNIT, and he sounded hoarse. “You don’t need to do this.”

“I think I do.”

Mike shook his head. “You… You know what I did, don’t you? How I betrayed everyone I care about? I could’ve hurt you too, you know.”

“But you didn’t, and that’s what matters.”

“No, it isn’t. It doesn’t matter what happened. What matters is that I tried to kill you all, and- and-” He couldn’t go on. He’d run this diatribe of self-hatred through his head on constant repeat since he was dismissed, but saying it out loud was too much for his starved, exhausted mind to handle. As he broke down, it felt like the world was falling to pieces around him, and it was only once Sarah had wrapped her arms around him and held him tight that he started to feel the ground beneath his feet again.

“Hey…” She murmured, letting Mike sob against her shoulder as she rubbed his shaking back. “It’s alright… You made a mistake, that’s all. Nothing more, it’s alright…”

“Is he alright, miss?” A stranger’s voice cut into Sarah’s words of comfort, and she was quick to shoo them away, reassuring them that she had the situation under control.

After the stranger left, she pulled away from him and gently brushed his hair out of his eyes. He’d let it grow longer since his dismissal, and it probably looked a mess. “Come on, let’s get out of here. We can get something for lunch, my treat.”

Too emotionally drained to argue, Mike nodded. A small smile on her face, Sarah replaced the clothes she’d picked out back on their hangers and then took Mike’s hand, giving it a small squeeze.

“Ready to go?”

Mike nodded again, too dazed by Sarah’s kindness to reject it.


	2. Speak and I'll Listen

He’d been the last person she’d expected to see.

Sarah had gone into that day thinking it would be a perfectly ordinary day off – she’d eat her breakfast, ignore the Doctor badgering her to go off into space with him, do a bit of shopping, go back home to watch a bit of telly, and go to bed. But instead of an innocuous shopping trip to update her wardrobe a bit, she got something completely different.

The last she’d heard of Mike Yates was that the Brigadier had let him quietly retire because he pulled a gun on him, the Doctor, and Sergeant Benton. She supposed that made sense, and she didn’t know Mike well enough to oppose it – they’d had a few pleasant chats, but that was about it. She certainly got the impression that she didn’t appreciate the gravity of the situation, at least from what the Doctor had told her. According to him, Mike had not only been one of the Brigadier’s best men, but a good friend to the Doctor as well, and so his betrayal had come as quite a shock. Of course, Sarah could sympathise, but it just hadn’t hurt her as much as it had them.

And yet, the more she thought about it, the more she realised there had been something strange about the former UNIT captain. Though she hardly knew him, when they’d spoken there was a certain… distance to him. Like he wasn’t really there. And she wouldn’t go as far to say he was melancholic, but he certainly hadn’t struck her as a happy man. No, he wasn’t happy at all, and she couldn’t help but wonder if the Doctor and the Brigadier – who were supposed to have been so close to him – had taken notice of it. Perhaps if they had, Mike wouldn’t have pulled a gun on them, but she couldn’t know that to be certain.

So, when she saw him that day in the department store, looking so lost and hollow inside, she couldn’t help but feel bad for him. She hadn’t even recognised him at first – the Mike she knew had short hair and a lean, healthy frame, while the Mike standing in front of her was rakishly thin with a mop of shaggy, unkempt hair on his head. If she hadn’t caught a glimpse of his eyes – those sad, empty eyes – she probably wouldn’t have recognised him at all.

When he broke down in her arms, Sarah knew she had to get him somewhere quiet. He was clearly in need of some serious help, and while she knew she was in no way qualified to give him that help, she could at least offer him the friendship he so desperately needed.

So that was how she found herself sitting in the park, a paper bag of fish and chips spread out in front of her, and a traitor to the United Nations at her side.

“Aren’t you going to have any?” she asked, gesturing to the meal in front of her. She’d made a decent dent in it, but Mike hadn’t so much as touched it. “I can’t eat this all myself, you know.”

Mike opened his mouth to speak, but he shut it again soon after. She hadn’t got two words out of him since they left the department store, and the poor thing just looked dazed and confused. She started to wonder if she should’ve just taken him home, but she figured getting some food into his starved stomach was just as important.

Picking up a chip, she nudged another one towards him. “Go on. It won’t kill you. Promise.” She smiled at him, but he didn’t give one in return. He did, however, pick up the chip and take a small bite – progress, if only a small amount of it. “There we go. That wasn’t so hard now, was it?”

He swallowed. “I- I suppose not.”

It was good to hear him say something, even if she could hardly hear him. “Have as much as you like. I got us two scoops for a reason, you know.”

“Yes…” He thought for a moment as he took another bite. “That’s nice of you.”

“Well, I’m a very nice person – or so I’ve been told.” She tipped her head as she looked at him – there was so much she wanted to ask him, but she doubted any of it was appropriate.

To her surprise, Mike spoke before she did. “I wasn’t expecting you to be so nice. To me, I mean.”

“Because of what you did?”

Mike nodded, and he started to pick at the grass beside him, pulling it out in clumps and rolling it between his fingers. His hands were shaking. “I don’t deserve your kindness. I don’t deserve anyone’s kindness.”

“I think you do,” Sarah said – and she meant it. She knew Mike had done a despicable thing, but people didn’t do that kind of thing for no reason. From what the Doctor had told her about Mike, he didn’t seem like the type who would take betraying his closest friends lightly. And, judging by the state of him now, he wasn’t loving the consequences. So, he couldn’t have done it because of pure bad intentions – there had to be something more to it, and she just couldn’t bring herself to believe that he’d done what he had because he wanted to.

Mike wasn’t as forgiving as she was. “No. I don’t. You’re wasting your time, Miss Smith.”

She bit her lip, feeling a little out of her element. “Just call me Sarah?” she asked, because it was the easiest thing to say.

He glanced over at her, his eyes heavy with exhaustion, and nodded. “I can do that. I can do whatever you like.”

“Crack a smile for me, then?”

Mike laughed at that, short and humourless. But at least it was a laugh, and he did smile for her, just a bit. Seeing him smile made her happier than she realised it would, and she suddenly found herself wondering why she cared so much for this man she hardly knew. Perhaps it was just her nature – she’d always liked to poke her nose in where it wasn’t necessarily wanted, and she liked to help people too.

They ate in silence for a while, Sarah having her fill while Mike picked at his like a sparrow. Eventually, he spoke again.

“I’m sorry you had to see that. It must have been very embarrassing for you,” he murmured, referring to his breakdown back at the store.

Sarah shrugged. “No need to apologise. I’m glad I was there to help – unless I was the one who caused it?”

“I…” Mike hesitated, thinking carefully before he spoke. “I think it was bound to happen no matter who I spoke to. You just happened to be the one who found me first.”

“So you haven’t spoken to anyone from UNIT?”

Mike shook his head, a dark cloud forming in his expression. “I can’t face them. I’ve no right to.”

“What do you mean?”

“I tried to kill them, Sarah. They’re better off without me.”

Somehow, Sarah doubted that was true. In the times she’d visited the Doctor, the mood around UNIT HQ since Mike left had been low, at least among the people she’d spoken to. The Doctor seemed none the worse for wear, no doubt used to this sort of thing in his many years of travelling the universe. But the Brigadier and Sergeant Benton were shaken by the whole ordeal – Sarah knew enough about grief to recognise when someone was hiding it, and the Brigadier was proving to be a fine example. And poor Benton looked so distraught whenever Mike was brought up in conversation that she just wanted to give him a hug. She supposed they must have been great friends.

It was clear to her that perhaps the people at UNIT wouldn’t be better off without him after all.

“So, nobody’s tried to contact you?” Sarah asked. “From UNIT, I mean.”

“No. Well, um, John – er, Sergeant Benton, he…” Mike sighed, his gaze dropping back to his hands, which were still pulling up blades of grass. “He kept coming to my door for a while, wanting answers. But that stopped after a while.”

“And you never spoke to him?”

Mike shook his head. “No.” He looked as though he wanted to say more, but he kept his mouth shut.

“Do you think that’s why he stopped coming?”

“I think he realised he was wasting his time.”

“I don’t think that’s the case at all, Mike,” Sarah said. Mike looked at her with a quizzical glance, not quite following. He’d so convinced himself he was worthless that the idea of anyone challenging that seemed to confuse him, and in some ways that was the saddest thing of all. “I’ve been to HQ a couple of times since the dinosaurs, and I think they do miss you. I think if you reached out to them, they’d be willing to listen.”

Mike didn’t respond to that. He just kept pulling on the grass and letting his lunch get cold, his eyes blank yet misty with memories. Sarah reached out and took his hand, gripping it tight.

“You need to talk to them, Mike. You won’t get anywhere behaving like this.”

But he’d lost his voice again.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Come say hi on Tumblr @fancyadancebrigadier


End file.
